Bye Bye Barbara

 "Success can make you go one of two ways. It can make you a prima donna - or it can smooth the edges, take away the insecurities, let the nice things come out....And I really do believe that the most important thing is the way you live your life on earth."

-Barbara Walter

 "Don't confuse being stimulating with being blunt."

-Barbara Walters

I have an addiction to being attracted to the best of the best in anything. I have written countless blogs on the best comedienne and television actress Lucille Ball, I have written about the best British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, I listen to the best singers such as Celine Dion and Barbra Streisand, I love the best musician Michael Jackson, and even in my personal life, all my mentors are the best in their field, and my master is the best in the world.

So it was no surprise that in my freshman year of high school, when I watched a Biography about Barbara Walters, she immediately became one of my superstar idols. What made her an idol for me? Her work ethic, her accomplishments, her pioneering, her blunt questioning, her style of execution, and her being the very best to this day, where no one can touch her, BEST in her line of work. Even at 83, almost 84, she is at the top of her game and never lost it.

Barbara Walters is the greatest journalist of all time. And she is, no surprise, a trailblazer for women in the field of journalism as well. She became the first woman co-host of the Today Show on NBC for fifteen years, and was the first million dollar salary woman anchor of an evening news program on ABC. She later became the co-host to the news magazine 20/20 for 25 years. Barbara has interviewed every president since Richard Nixon, every major infamous murder and crime news story, presidents and world leaders such as Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Boris Yeltson, Vladimir Putin, Hugo Chavez, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and one of her best known interviews with Fidel Castro, being the first American to cross the bay of pigs with the dictator in the 1970s. She is also famous for her joint interview with two world leader rivals Anwar Al Sadat and Menechan Begin.

Barbara Walters interview with Fidel Castro in 1977 was equivalent to as if she interviewed Saddam Hussein during The Iraq War.

Barbara was known to get the interviews no one else could, the "scoops" and asking the questions no one else dared ask in the field. She was able to get the story no one else could and get people to tell things no one else would be able to find out. The first interview with Martha Stewart before her trial and only an hour after her sentencing, the first interview with Christopher Reeves after his accident, the first interview with Jason Williams after his murder trial, and the only interview during the Clinton scandal with Monika Lewinsky which is still the most watched interview on television to date. I remember watching it myself.

Barbara Walters was all about the questions, which is a big part of my martial arts teachings and the blunt questioning. "Are you mad, Mr. Gaddafi?" "Did you kill your wife?" "Why do people hate you, Martha?" "Are you sad you didn't burn the tapes, Mr. Nixon?" "What kind of a tree are you, Miss Hepburn?" And watching her interviews for over ten years myself now, it is like watching a fantastic actress on stage, her line of questioning as her voice gets softer and then the "gotcha" question and she got the story! And he is not intrusive or abusive like most journalists. She is respectable, and respected. 

The Barbara Walters Specials are the most famous and watched news specials on television. They were either huge interviews with the famous or infamous, political or Hollywood, her Oscar Special went on for 30 years before the Academy Awards aired, and every year she still does her 10 Most Fascinating People of the Year. And in 1997 she began the daytime show The View which she owns and executive producer. 

Barbara Walters founded the daytime television show The View in 1997 and has been going strong for 17 years!

Barbara Walters was a huge influence in my life. You can ask any of my long time friends from high school on. I identified with her work ethic and drive. She truly is a driving force and absolutely inexhaustible. I wanted to be just that. And I have been for many years. Nothing stopped her, there were no excuses, and she never seized to amaze her industry. She has made a name for herself and her industry and is absolutely singular. No one can do what she does. Some may have come close, like Dianne Sawyer or Katie Couric, but none of them could be where they are if it weren't for Barbara.

I think the most common story I hear about a television icon is the story that is told over and over again by both Barbara and her little protege, Oprah Winfrey. There would no be Oprah or any other woman on television at their caliber if it weren't for Barbara. When Oprah started out as a journalist, she used to pose like Barbara, talk like Barbara, sit like Barbara, and tried so hard to be like Barbara. Until finally one day, Oprah decided only Barbara can be like Barbara. However, Barbara takes full credit for Oprah's success lol.

Oprah Winfrey says "If there weren't a Barbara, there wouldn't have been a me."

Barbara Walters with another one of my idols, Lucille Ball and then husband Gary Morton.

To this day I work hard to mimic the work ethic and drive that this woman has in my own way in my own industry. In high school I was actually known as the Barbara Walters of the school, taking over the school newspaper and interviewing like it was the New York Times. I use those researching skills and interviewing skills to the "Walters caliber" in my martial arts training, to my business, my teaching, my working with people, my counseling, and this very blog! 

When she published her autobiography Audition, I heard she was going to the community college where I lived. I of course dragged one of my friends with me and went to the college to see her speak and watched her get interviewed by the college president. Then I ran to the very front of the line to get her to sign my copy of her book. I was three feet away from one of my idols. I was so happy! I remembered people saying to her "I want to be like you" etc etc, and her answer was "Then you have to have the entire package." Little did she know, I already had the whole package with my own story.

You can only imagine my disappointment when this past week, Barbara Walters announced her retirement in one year from now. I really followed her and looked up to this icon. So now I write here my next goal for within the year. Because I am one who loves to make big goals and make them come true. I was three feet away from Barbara when she signed my copy of her autobiography. Now this time, sometime within the year, I am going to have a sit down meet, perhaps lunch, with the journalism legend! She's not gone yet! I have one year to make this happen! You heard it here first.

I am so grateful for icons such as Barbara Walters who has influenced me to this very day. I admire her work, and I admire her story. May she always remain the very BEST and as I have for over ten years, continue to watch her work during her last year before she retires in May 2014. Who knows! Maybe she'll interview me! HAHA! (BOWS)

Yours in service,

MASTER TRENTO